ANTHRAX (Live)

at the City Hall, Newcastle, U.K., October 1, 2022

ANTHRAX (Live at the City Hall, Newcastle, U.K., October 1, 2022)
Photo: Mick Burgess

It’s not every band that can have a dazzling array of guests including Lady Ga Ga, Keanu Reeves, Chuck D, John Carpenter, Slash and Norman Reedus give glowing testimonies on a giant screen to celebrate a dazzling career spanning just over four decades but then Anthrax are no ordinary band.

Anthrax took the ferocity and intensity of Thrash Metal and added a huge injection of personality and fun to create something unique and thrilling, whilst also innovating by colliding the worlds of Metal and Hip Hop together with their ground breaking collaboration with Public Enemy.

Tonight, was a celebration of their career that started way back in New York in 1981 and has seen them reach the top table of Thrash grabbing an armful of gold records along the way and the City Hall was packed to join the celebrations.

An opening salvo of “Among The Living,” “Caught In A Mosh” and “Madhouse” sparked a mini riot as crowd surfers crashed over the audience as the fast and furious riffs of Scott Ian and Jon Donais and Charlie Benante’s thunderous drums created a maelstrom of Thrash Metal magic.

If ever a song title perfectly described the music within then there can be fewer better examples than “Metal Thrashing Mad” which saw Anthrax dip back to their very first album as bassist Frank Bello raced from one side of the stage to the other and up the huge staircase flanking Benante’s titanic drumkit.

Frontman Joey Belladona’s ever smiling face and playful on-stage banter belied the ferocity of the music and made every single person in the audience feel a part of the show, especially the little girl in the balcony who was delighted to receive a plectrum thrown up to her by the amiable singer.

“Antisocial” and “I Am The Law” hammered down hard as the Newcastle crowd added some ferocious gang vocals creating a spinetingling atmosphere of pure Rock energy.

A segment of their pioneering “Bring The Noise” segued neatly into “Indians”, featuring the legendary mid-section breakdown where the audience momentarily parts before Ian riffs furiously and Belladona bellows “War Dance” to spark the biggest, most cataclysmic circle pit the City Hall has ever seen. Anyone who doubts the power of Metal, really should have been here to witness this awe-inspiring spectacle.

Review and Photos By Mick Burgess

Author

  • Mick Burgess

    Mick is a reviewer and photographer here at Metal Express Radio, based in the North-East of England. He first fell in love with music after hearing Jeff Wayne's spectacular The War of the Worlds in the cold winter of 1978. Then in the summer of '79 he discovered a copy of Kiss Alive II amongst his sister’s record collection, which literally blew him away! He then quickly found Van Halen I and Rainbow's Down To Earth, and he was well on the way to being rescued from Top 40 radio hell!   Over the ensuing years, he's enjoyed the Classic Rock music of Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, and Deep Purple; the AOR of Journey and Foreigner; the Pomp of Styx and Kansas; the Progressive Metal of Dream Theater, Queensrÿche, and Symphony X; the Goth Metal of Nightwish, Within Temptation, and Epica, and a whole host of other great bands that are too numerous to mention. When he's not listening to music, he watches Sunderland lose more football (soccer) matches than they win, and occasionally, if he has to, he goes to work as a property lawyer.

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